Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The documentary Tapped will make you never want to drink a plastic bottle of water again. You think, a bottle of water is pure, clean and safe, when in reality, that water is barely tested for safety and the plastic bottle it comes in poses its own hazards. Truth is that municipal water supplies are often safer than bottled water (municipal supplies are tested many times A DAY. Bottled water asks the company to voluntarily test for safety, and is only 1 person at the FDA oversees billions of bottles of produced water). Eighty million bottles of water are consumed in America every day….30 million of those end up in landfills (all of them can and should be recycled).Currently (STILL) only 11 states have deposit laws. It remains true that those states recycle more than all other states (in fact Michigan the state with the 10 cent deposit has a 97% return rate). Why aren't bottle deposit laws mandatory in every state? This is another case of allowing companies to not take responsibility for their products. Think the oil crisis is just $4 a gallon for gas? It takes 714 million gallons of oil to make just the BOTTLES we drink from every year. (that's enough to power 100,000 cars). From extracting and manufacturing; to safety after ingestion; to the waste and health hazards of disposal, this documentary proves that every step of bottled water is an unnecessary excess.

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Nothing makes me happier than the fact that the world’s longest
election cycle is over. And while some are trying to downplay it by saying that
we’re in for 4 more years of the same (same President, same parties in control
of the House and Senate) there are some small but important changes that I hope
and believe will make a difference.

1) Elizabeth Warren defeating Scott Brown in Massachusetts. No one
should be caught unaware of my girl-crush, but if you’re not on board with her,
just watch any one of her Daily Show interviews and you’ll fall in love with
her no nonsense, rational approach to fiscal responsibility. Cutting out
essential programs is not going to fix the budget, but getting Congress (and
ordinary Americans) to live within their means will.

2) Big money doesn’t always buy you an election. With billions
spent by Romeny (and specifically the Koch Brothers) and McMahon in
Connecticut, it’s nice to know that money can’t buy everything. Oh but it was
nice of them to stimulate the economy like that for a while.

3) Another Independent in the Senate. Maybe it’s just me, but I
like the idea of people publicly keeping themselves open to other ideas.
Maine’s previous Senator (Republican Olympia Snowe) often voted outside of her
party line, but her successor (Angus King) is showing up unattached to any
party. Here’s hoping he and Bernie Sanders (IND-VT) start a trend.

5) Love is love. Gay marriage was finally approved in Maine and
Maryland. Minnesota turned down an initiative to redefine their constitutional
definition of marriage (as 1 man, 1 woman) and Tammy Baldwin, the first openly
gay Senator was elected in Wisconsin, beating a 4-time incumbent!

The beauty contest is over, now it’s time to do something with the
prizes. I’m praying that no longer having the fear of losing a second term will
allow this administration to truly move forward on the environment and
financial recovery. I really have hope that progress and bold changes can
happen, but only if the Republicans can drop the "I'm taking my ball and going home" mentality. Stay tuned.

Sunday, November 04, 2012

I’ve
been reading a book about World War II lately (“December 1941: 31 Days that Changed America and Saved the World by Craig Shirley) and
it’s interesting to compare the 1940s mentality of disaster with today’s. In
the 40s, Americans were told to ration items (gas, sugar, steel, panty hose…)
in order to support the war effort. They were told to participate in black out
drills so the enemy couldn’t discern targets (like, what? The Johnson’s lawn
jockey? But I digress…). They were told to carpool, plant victory gardens, to
‘use it up, make it do or do without’. They raced to get to recruitment centers
and were upset when they were deemed unfit for service because they were too
old or too married. These were the hardships of the 40s, but the thing is,
Americans did them all. And willingly. Its an interesting comparison to today,
where we have all these luxuries that we take for granted and no one asks us to
cut back or go without (Could you imagine George W. Bush asking Americans to cut
back on sugar after 9/11? LOLOLOLROFLROFLROFL…sorry, I lost the plot there for
a minute…I’m back). I just wonder how many Americans will take a moment this
week and say ‘no latte for me today, I’m making a donation to the Red Cross
instead.’ If everyone grabbed a bucket, the water would be gone from the flood zone.
(pick any flood zone you want, it doesn’t have to be the one Sandy caused,
because there will be another flood next year. In Iowa, in Nashville, in New
Orleans, in Manila…somewhere.) And I can guarantee you that pick 2 flood victims and the
one with the more simplified life is coping a lot better than the one who can’t
charge their iPhone to play Angry Birds or order take out or watch Netflix.

Saturday, November 03, 2012

Oh the dump! How I love the dump. It’s the mark of a true Mainer
is how much you love the dump. And well, we don’t really call it the “dump”
anymore; it has a nice euphemistic name called “Transfer Station”. How lovely.
As in “I am transferring my crap to the dump.” But it’s so much more than a
hole in the ground where everyone drops their dirty diapers and cat litter.
Turn to the right, and that’s where you can drop off everything that is
recyclable: glass, plastic, paper. Give the nice man a few dollars and they’ll
let you drop off 3 cubic yards of lawn clipping and leaves. Head west-ish and
there’s the wood pile (“No pressure treated wood in the wood pile” the marquee
exclaims.) Head around the building and there’s old windows, toilets, and a
“take or leave” pile all for free! We’re nothing but resourceful up here. And
all for the low price of $5 a year. What? $5??? (In California, my sewer and
trash bill is at least $26… per MONTH.) Politics aside, all Mainers can agree
on one thing, we love the dump. (though some of us haven’t grasped the concept
of bottle deposit yet! Nickels! Everywhere beside the road!)